Paper abstract:

In 1959, in the introduction to his edition of the Book of Light, a collection of prayers, supplications, and poetry in Arabic and Persian that Central Asian Ismailis use in an old and unique post-funeral ritual, the leading pioneer in Ismaili studies, Vladimir Ivanow (d. 1970) called attention to similarity between a prayer in the Book of Light and a sermon of Iranian dervishes. Ivanow took the reference in the Book of Light as a “reliable indication of some kind of connection” between the tradition of the Sufi dervishes and the Ismailis of Central Asia. Other scholars, including Nir al-Din Mudarrisi Chahardihi (d. 1997) also pointed to “a total similarity” between and close-ties of Iranian Sufi dervishes and Central Asian Ismailis. Except Ivanov and Chahardihi, no other study has ever explored the relations between the traditions of the Iranian dervishes and Central Asian Ismailis and their close-ties have not received any due attention to date. This study, which is based on a larger research project, explores elements that the Book of Light shares with representative works of a number of Iranian and Central Asian Sufi traditions. Based on a close examination of primary sources composed between 17th and 19th centuries, it argues that the Book of Light strongly bears the influence of the Twelver Shii-Sufi paths. This explains the presence Sufi and Twelver Shii elements in the Book of Light, a phenomenon that has not been convincingly explained in Central Asian Ismaili scholarship to date.